A game of strength vs. strength

TEMPE, Ariz. -- It is more than fitting that Notre Dame and Ohio State clash in the shadow of a city named after a mythical bird that rose from its own ashes.

Two near-perfect strangers. Two fiercely proud football traditions. Two teams with perhaps the two best players in the country not to have been invited to New York for the Heisman Trophy shindig -- Irish quarterback Brady Quinn and Buckeye linebacker A.J. Hawk.

Two teams that mirrored each other's selflessness and overcame a lot to get to this point, but not enough to get them to Pasadena.

"It's kind of the battle of the what-ifs," Quinn said of Monday's Fiesta Bowl matchup between No. 5 Notre Dame (9-2) and No. 4 Ohio State (9-2) at Sun Devil Stadium in the Phoenix suburbs.

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"Both teams lost close games to the teams playing in the national championship game by such small margins. And we realize that if we would have won those games, we probably could have been playing each other for the national championship. It's weird to look back at it now, but that's not the reality of it, so we have to deal with the situation that we're in."

And the situation is that No. 2 Texas, a 25-22 survivor in Columbus on Sept. 10, and No. 1 USC, a fortuitous 34-31 victor Oct. 15 in South Bend, will square off in the Rose Bowl Wednesday night to determine this season's national champion.

But it's also just as realistic to think that the winner of Monday's Fiesta tussle will have the inside track on being the preseason No. 1 team for next season and that perhaps both squads could return to the area when the national title game rotates to the new football facility being erected in nearby Glendale, Ariz.

The Irish will likely have more returning starters in 2006, but they also have more to prove Monday. Ohio State provides ND with an opponent that has no holes in its resume.

"Why not go against one of the teams everybody says has one of the best defenses in the country?" Irish offensive tackle Ryan Harris said. "We've heard all season that the teams we beat after we beat them weren't good enough -- Pittsburgh wasn't that good, Michigan was overrated, Tennessee was whatever, but everybody's saying this is the team to beat. This is the defense, so we'll go after them."

Notre Dame goes after Ohio State with a team that a year ago was supposedly too untalented, too boxed in by parochial academic standards and ambitious scheduling, too arrogant to realize it had become irrelevant in the bigger picture of college football to even dream of a BCS berth this decade.

Ohio State, meanwhile, had to find life after the departure of running back Maurice Clarett -- the sparkplug in its 2002 national title run -- who would have been a senior this year had he stayed in school instead of leaving early for an NFL career that now has him on pro football's back roads.

More challenging for Buckeye head coach Jim Tressel was dealing with the residue of that departure, loud and pointed accusations that called into question even Tressel's integrity.

But Ohio State not only lived through it, the Buckeyes became a closer team, a team that seemed to be in direct opposition to Clarett's all-about-me persona.

In fact, Buckeye defensive coordinator Joe Heacock points to the team-first attitude of his unit as the reason OSU went from a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten defense in 2004 to the fourth-best defense statistically in the nation and best against the run.

"To me the most important thing is when I look back on our defense was that they played together as a unit and they gave each other credit," Heacock said. "We didn't have a bunch of individuals out there trying to draw attention to themselves. The focus of this unit was what I think was special with this group."

It will be strength against strength, though, as Notre Dame brings the best passing offense (fourth nationally) Ohio State has seen all season and a scoring offense that can rival Texas' top-ranked unit.

"It's going to be a big chess match," Ohio State safety Donte Whitner said. "Offensively, they don't do a lot of different things than other college teams, but they do a lot of things better than a lot of college teams do."

In every other area, Ohio State seemingly has the statistical advantage -- its improving offense has better relative numbers than Notre Dame's defense. Its quarterback, Troy Smith, and his ability to be a running and passing threat is just the kind of signal-caller that gave the Irish the most problems this year. Its special teams are more consistent and more explosive than ND's.